(414) 258-4810, ext. 406 conlonj@mtmary.edu Third Floor Notre Dame Hall East

Jim Conlon, Ph.D.
Professor, Philosophy

Education -

• B.A., Philosophy, Seattle University, 1970
  
• M.A., Philosophy, Marquette University, 1974
  
• Ph.D. Philosophy, Marquette University, 1975

Honors -

• Teaching Excellence, Mount Mary College, 1991
• Heritage Medal, 1999

Teaching Interests -

I find myself drawn to philosophizing and teaching about human experiences that I have found especially exhilarating. Thus, I regularly teach courses in philosophy of art, film, travel and love. I find teaching the introductory Search for Meaning course particularly exciting, because it is usually the first awakening students have to philosophy and its unique approach to the kind of meaning questions that inevitably arise in the course of living.

Teaching Philosophy -

My goal is to get students to do philosophy and, hopefully, to see the value of doing it. I see traditional and contemporary philosophical texts as a tool for doing this, but I do not view these texts as ends in themselves. In other words, I want students to seriously think about their reasons for believing in – for example - an afterlife, rather than knowing Plato’s reasons. I would describe my classroom style as an intertwining of lecture, Socratic probing and discussion.

Research Interests -

I usually find myself working on the borders between philosophy and other disciplines. Lately this has been between philosophy and geography. I see the choice of where to live, of what place to inhabit, as an extremely significant ethical decision. I am trying to better understand the ethical implications of the spaces created for us by our global, consumerist society as well as travel between those places.

Publications -

Dr. Conlon has published articles in the Journal of Aesthetic Education, the Journal of Popular Film & Television, Post Script and Philosophy in the Contemporary World. Recent publications include the following:

• "Cities and the Place of Philosophy"
  Philosophy and the City: Classic to Contemporary Writings.
  Ed. Sharon M. Meagher. New York: State University of New York Press, 2007, pp. 199-209.
• "Bridging Cultural Gaps: An Online Discussion Between Arab and American Students on Ibn Hazm" Al-Mashriq: A Quarterly Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 5, 17, June 2006, pp. 63-78.
• "Men Reading Women Reading: Interpreting Images of Women Readers"
  Frontiers: A Journal Of Women Studies, Vol. 26, 2: 2005, pp. 37-58.
• "Wings of Desire and the Value of Mortality"
  Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, Vol. 23, 1: Fall, 2003, pp. 37-50.
• "An Aesthetic Reading of Sexual Sounds"
  International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, Volume 7, 1, January 2002, pp. 51-59.